Ethnicity

This work (review based on original 1947) edition is helpful in understanding how the Jewish survivors of the German-made Holocaust emerged from hiding, described their wartime experiences, and were attempting to rebuild their lives. It also gives insights into Soviet-ruled Poland, and the impending imposition of the Communist puppet state.
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Hannah Arendt covers many topics in this volume [Review based on 2000 Edition]. This includes various political philosophies and philosophers, the history of German Jews, the unfolding Holocaust, the similarities between Soviet Communism and German Nazism, and much more. She believes that government-forced racial desegregation in the USA violates the freedom of association. She compares it to forcing Jews in Jewish-only vacation resorts to associate with non-Jews. (p. 238)
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The reader learns of some Poles denouncing Jews for the German reward of a bag of sugar, of grabbing anything that belonged to Jews, of even respectable Poles denouncing Jews, and of members of the Polish Blue Police (POLICJA GRANATOWA) drinking to assuage their acts against Jews, etc. Did you know that Jews acted in astonishingly the same ways (towards other Jews, and that even before the actual Holocaust)? Please click on In Those Terrible Days: Writings from the Lodz Ghetto and read the detailed Peczkis review. Clearly, this overall repulsive conduct was severe wartime demoralization, and not some mythical Poles' "failure of the test of humanity" (p. 5)
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This book offers disappointingly little that is substantive or original. The "perceptions" and "misperceptions" primarily deal with those of Poles towards Jews, but seldom the reverse. In addition, this work is weak on the causes behind the "perceptions" and "misperceptions." I focus on a few items of interest:
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Yes, I have read the book. And please spare me the irrelevant line about Jan T. Gross being half-Polish, and certain politically-correct Poles in media and academia agreeing with him.

Regardless of his motives (Holocaust Industry?), Jan T. Gross makes Poles out to be some kind of villains who were greedy for Jewish property. He also conflates Germans taking Jewish property and Poles during the same. In actuality, Germans came to Poland as greedy conquerors, and were never in desperate straits. They simply sought to enrich themselves. Poles, in stark contrast, had to eke out a life under the German occupation and the immediate postwar period. The ingrained corruption bred by the amoral Soviet-imposed Communist system later became another factor animating Polish conduct.
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Many popular Shoah misconceptions have entered both common and academic thinking. Holocaust-uniqueness advocates would have us believe that, 1). The diversion of Jews from death camps to forced labor occurred only because Germany's deteriorating military position forced this policy; 2). Nazi policies towards Jews were self-consistent; 3). Nazis never saw the Jews in a utilitarian manner; 4). Once decided upon, the Nazis had a unitary goal of exterminating all Jews; 5). The Holocaust, unlike other genocides, was irrational and self-defeating in that it knowingly harmed the perpetrator economically and militarily. This groundbreaking work shows that all five premises are false.
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nstead of elaborating on Mielnicki's wartime experiences in detail, as other reviewers have done, I focus on deeper issues. The author described his experiences, for this book, a half-century after the events. (p. 19). As in other such situations, the reader must always be on the lookout for "memories" that were grafted into the memory of the Holocaust survivor that he had heard from others but not experienced himself. In addition, much of what the author writes he admittedly heard from others (hearsay).
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Jakob Weiss begins with a history of Austrian-ruled Lwow(Lviv, Lemberg). Considering especially the fact that the city in question wasnot called Lemberg during most of his life, why does he title his book with theGerman-language name of this Polish city?
The author touches on pre-WWII Jewish life, the 1939 war,the Soviet and Nazi occupations, the unfolding Holocaust, his flight to Warsaw,etc. Unfortunately, he repeats the bogus charges of massive 1918-era pogroms, nearlyall of which decisively had been discredited by the investigatory commission ofWilson-sent American Jew Henry Morgenthau. Weiss condemns Morgenthau asessentially a traitor, without presenting any evidence showing that Morgenthauwas supposedly incorrect or untruthful. (pp. 382-383). He also repeats the 1939myths of Polish cavalry charging German tanks, and the Polish Air Force largelydestroyed on the ground. (p. 124).
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Many popular Shoah misconceptions have entered both common and academic thinking. Holocaust-uniqueness advocates would have us believe that, 1). The diversion of Jews from death camps to forced labor occurred only because Germany's deteriorating military position forced this policy; 2). Nazi policies towards Jews were self-consistent; 3). Nazis never saw the Jews in a utilitarian manner; 4). Once decided upon, the Nazis had a unitary goal of exterminating all Jews; 5). The Holocaust, unlike other genocides, was irrational and self-defeating in that it knowingly harmed the perpetrator economically and militarily. This groundbreaking work shows that all five premises are false.
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Arthur Greiser, in his younger years, was aMason. (p. 41). Later, the Nazis denounced Freemasonry as a tool of the Jews.(p. 42). Ironically, German Freemasonry (and as confirmed by Polish authors)was long pro-German, as pointed out by the author, "While Free Masonry wassupposedly apolitical, in Germany it tended toward conservatism. In the 1920's,most lodges espoused strong VOLKISCH and anti-democratic views." (p. 42).
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